I recently purchased a Black Dragon cable for my Etymotic ER4s from ebay'er 'Awwan' along with one of his interchangeable B/S/P adapters. I will be speaking mainly to the build quality of these items as I have much more listening to do with this cable. I also must admit that I am not driving from a dedicated headphone amp - as such, I use the low impedance adapter (P). Anyways, with that disclaimer out of the way - let's talk about these new cables.
First off, the stiffness is much greater compared to the OEM Ety cables. This is to be expected and although some may gripe about this, I actually enjoy it - you can feel a certain quality when holding them. You can also see the braiding through the sleeve, it almost looks like chain-link - a very nice, functional aesthetic. The 3.5mm Pailiccs plug is a nice touch as well, though I must confess that there is a small gap between the outlet and the cable as the shrink wrap does not completely fill the space.
Onto to the other side of the cable, I really am impressed by the new fittings that connect to the AW Audio adapters. IMO, these are the style Etymotic should have gone with to connect to the driver - even if just for sake of flashing some knurled gold and colour-coded L/R bands (Blue/Red) - it looks classy. The fact that the new adapters are rotatable make for easier fitting as well as packing into a case. I also like new combination of 90 degree adapter and ear-guides; it really removes a lot of the microphonics I used to hear with the OEM pig-tail setup. A shirt clip would be a nice add-on but for the most part unnecessary as the microphonics are greatly reduced with the ear-guides.
Overall, very impressed with the cables in terms of build-quality - definitely worth the money if you appreciate that sort of thing. Based solely on the build quality and aesthetics, I would purchase these cables to replace the OEM set - it's a nice addition to an already very nice set of IEM's.
Onto the sound quality... it's great. Honestly.
Obviously it's not a day vs. night type of thing, I don't think it's meant to be. The difference, in so far as I've observed, is more of a subtle increase in clarity; the shortcomings of my portable source have definitely begun to come through in the music. I will post an update in a month or so when I upgrade my headphone source and get the 'S' adapter - I don't think writing a proper review based on listening to a potable source is of much value - so I won't waste anyone's time with that.
That's all for now, pictures are coming as well as some more description once I've owned them for a bit longer and get a chance to listen to them on a proper source.
